


in the span of a breath, i bring you back

by redledgers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Past Relationship(s), Post Civil War, Wakanda, civil war spoilers, cryo, re kindling, re-learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6778927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looks panicked when she opens her mouth to speak, so she offers her palm to him.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha reckons with her past after Captain America: Civil War. Contains huge spoilers for the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the span of a breath, i bring you back

T’Challa finds her first.

He brings her to Wakanda without telling Steve, puts her up in a luxurious room in a part of his home where Steve would not stumble upon her. And, after she wakes, he brings her into a room. The clear walls darken around her and she faces the cryo chamber on the other side.

This time, she sits in front of it, remembering what T’Challa told her. He didn’t know which Bucky he was. But he knew Steve, and there had been a flicker of recognition the first time she fought him after signing the Accords (whether it was a hope or truth, she couldn’t tell, but she wanted to try to see what else he remembered—it was why she let them leave). T’Challa comes in hours later, to bring her to dinner.

It is at dinner when Steve sees her, and he immediately disapproves of her presence. She does not tell him why she is here, lets him come to his own conclusions, and goes back to the cryo chamber again the next day.

This time, they let Bucky out, and he emerges, gasping, looking around, and seeing nothing but her. He looks panicked when she opens her mouth to speak, so she offers her palm to him. “James,” she says softly.

“My name is Bucky,” he replies. “Whose idea was it to let me out?”

She drops her arm to her side. “Mine.”

A comfortable silence settles around the space and she fidgets, glad the only witness to her nerves is him.

“I wanted to help,” she says after a few moments. “I know a thing or two about this.”

“You called me James.” She knows that Zemo called him James, that the name is an echo of a past he refuses to dwell on despite being unable to forget.

“If you’re up for it, I could help connect the dots between your memories, as far as what I know to be truly you.”

He looks at her like she’s crazy, and she probably is. Finding the James she knew is a long shot; trying to combine him with the Bucky that voluntarily entered cryo for an indefinite amount of time near impossible. “What do you know?”

Silently, she lifts her shirt to show him the scar from what she told Steve was her first encounter with the Winter Soldier. She can tell by his eyes that he remembers this moment, this mission, but also does not remember the significance of it. The other imprints he left are internal, things that can’t be shown to him, not yet.

“I know a thing or two,” she repeats. “And I know I called you James.”

If the walls had been clear, she thought Steve might be watching, shocked and mad at her sudden disruption. If she was honest with herself, she wished he would chew her out for her actions.

___

The process takes two weeks. Slow, staggering steps, gaps in memory, and agonizing nightmares come and go as he reconnects his past with her. The first step happens when he calls her Natalia unprovoked, and she tries her hardest not to smile too big.

She makes no comment about his missing arm, a weapon in his eyes that has been filed down and covered for his own protection. A time may come when he wants it back, but for now, it is the thing barring their connection from turning into anything else.

He tells her about Steve, about everything he remembers, chronicling it out and letting her fill in details if she knows them. Some of this she remembers, when the cracks in his mind wiping came through late at night. Other things she has read, in dossiers and history books, and she knows them also to be true.

A bed is brought in for him, although at the beginning he insists on remaining in cryo during the night, and so Natasha chooses to take the bed until he becomes comfortable trying to sleep in it. Only then does she return to her own room, slinking through the shadows to avoid the heat of Steve’s anger. And the first time they meet face to face is soon after, at the edge of the room Bucky now calls home, posturing for the ability to enter first. Natasha wins, slipping past Steve in a way he would later categorize as “spider-like,” and climbing on to Bucky as he thrashes.

She sits on his abdomen, lets herself be a victim to his movements until he realizes and stills, dropping his arm to his side. They look at each other in silence, and she cautiously reaches out, placing her palm on what’s left of his bionic arm, and moves it gently to feel the skin where his shoulder meets circuitry. This is a familiar process for her, the way to calm the nightmares, and it seems to have jolted some memory of his—the sort of memory that can’t be erased or reactivated because it belongs to the flesh, the muscles, and the innermost being.

“Welcome back, James,” she murmurs, unwilling to move. This is a safe space, or it used to be, and she lets her guard down.

The moment is ruined when Steve bursts in, and Bucky sits up so fast he has to catch Natasha before she falls to the floor. He is cautiously protective as he holds her, and she glares at him. The scenario seems familiar to her, but she can’t place why.

Steve can’t get a word out because Bucky levels him with a glare as well, and tells him calmly to leave. It is apparently enough that Steve can tell exactly which Bucky he is speaking to—a combination of the Bucky he knew and the one he became. Natasha would be proud if she wasn’t terrified; she hated when things spiraled out of her control. 

When Steve leaves them to find T’Challa, presumably to figure out what was going on, Bucky turns to Natasha. “I don’t know what happens now,” he says, releasing her.

It is then that she realizes her terror extends beyond Steve’s reaction, that it has seeped into her soul because it has been so long since she allowed herself to love anyone like she loved James years ago. And she is speechless, gaping, and unwilling to move away from him. “Whatever you want,” she manages. It was his choice, to go back into cryo, to explore what he knows, or to become someone else entirely—she did not want to push him in this fragile state. He looked strong but he was fragile, cracked, and could shatter at any moment. 

“I think,” he says slowly, “that I would like to clean up.” He has not left that space since he entered it, eaten only because T’Challa made sure food was brought, and had barely slept.

Natasha cannot help but smile, reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ear, but stopping because they are not there yet. “I think that can be arranged.”

Later, he will come to her to ask why, and she will patch the cracks and manage this new version of the man she loved and the man Steve knew. In time, Steve will understand, but it takes T’Challa’s diplomacy for the healing process to begin.

In the now, Bucky is given a room to stay in, and she sits outside the bathroom door listening to the shower fall against his skin. In the now, she thinks this is enough.


End file.
